Sunday of Hope and Self-importance
Isaiah 35:4-7a; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37
When I hear of all kinds of cancers today, it is so frightening that I wonder why human beings must suffer thus! Maybe for adults, one could understand illnesses (even though that too is inexplicable), but children suffering from cancer keeps one on the verge of revolt and rebellion against God – why the suffering of the innocent and the weak? Issues of needless poverty and injustices of preposterous proportions stare us in the face on daily basis. Situations like these make me dream of a sickness-free world; a world where people are ever happy, and sadness disappears; a world free of wicked people, where people are happy and show only love to one another. This my dream is called wishful thinking because the real world is full of sadness and wickedness, but whose fault is it?
Our first reading today presents us with a theology of hope, hope that better days are coming, when God will take care of our problems and teach us how to deal with the negative situations of earthly living and existence. The prophet Isaiah puts this dream-day predictions this way, “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; With divine recompense he comes to save you” (Isaiah 35:4). Isaiah makes salvation and courage the works of God himself. It is with God that the ideals we desire can be attained and achieved. By implication, when God is far removed from human enterprises, peace, love and joy disappear. It is with the presence of God amongst human beings that the perfect situations we seek after would be guaranteed. This hoped-for epoch opens with the arrival of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us.
Our first reading provides us with the indices of the arrival and presence of God and the signs of his visit to us. Amongst the signs to be experienced, Isaiah says, would be, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing” (Isaiah 35:5-6). Today, the healing of the deaf and dumb man, in the gospel, tells the tale of the arrival and presence of God among his people. Jesus is the awaited Messiah that brings about the reign of God among his people, carrying away their iniquities and healing their diseases. If that hope was not immediately realized for the people of Isaiah’s time, it is realized for us in Jesus Christ – Jesus’ saliva and touch brought healing to a deaf and dumb person.
Definitely, there are cultures in which “kissing” is a sign of love, acceptance and care – the closest one comes to saliva. It (a kiss) shows what is deeply embedded in the human heart, something that the act of kissing itself makes concrete. A “kiss” is love concretized; but it is also a sign of future promise of love. Yes, if a “kiss” was a sign of betrayal by Judas Iscariot, it is NOT the typical experience of kisses. In a kiss is the eradication of distance, the show of proximity; and, in a kiss is a sign of surrender and vulnerability. When a kiss is sincere and genuine, it is therapeutic and salutary!
If you have “kissing” as part of your culture, you may not have problems with someone spitting into your mouth, as Jesus does in today’s gospel! May be as a prelude to healing your infirmity or performing a miracle in your favor, you may be willing to compromise; after all, desperate situations require desperate measures, as we would say. However, an African will definitely think twice before accepting anybody coming close to his mouth, not to talk of spitting into it. Yet, Jesus not only touched the ears of the deaf and dumb man of today’s gospel, but he also spits into it; but why?
Mark explains to us, as an opening sentence of today’s gospel, that Jesus returns to Galilee from Tyre and Sidon. In other words, Jesus is at home – Galilee, not on foreign soil, Tyre and Sidon. Jesus returns to familiar territories, to family and friends, which makes “kissing” or spitting into someone’s mouth a lot easier on account of familiarity, friendship and family ties. This simply shows what God aims at, to be so close to us as to feel with us all we are going through, and to heal us. It is closeness to and with God that makes God’s speech our speech, God’s hearing our hearing. If we paid attention to the account of creation in Genesis 1-2, God creates the human person for himself; in today’s gospel, he takes the power of creation and recreation from himself to restore what went wrong in his creature – Jesus restores a deaf and dumb person to health by taking of himself to effect a miracle of healing – Jesus’ spittle and touch brought healing.
The story of today’s miracle tells three facts: 1) that with God is healing or restoration of whatever has been damaged in human life. It is by being close to God that we receive our healing and restoration in all circumstances; 2) that God sometimes intervenes in human lives the human way, that is, using what is already in creation. If God decides to use his words alone for healing, that is possible and consistent: we have an example in Genesis 1, where God’s words brought creation into existence; but if he decides to use what is already in creation, Genesis 2 explains that God does that as well, when he created Adam from the soil of the earth. Also, 3) we must not fail to know that God wants to use you and me to bring healing to the world today.
Despite the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, you and I continue to experience diseases and injustices, the world doesn’t seem to be as perfect and glorious as Isaiah prophesied it would be! One thing remains sure, though, we all need healings for all the troubles that are ours as individuals, families, nations, and the Roman Catholic Church of today! However, we often forget that the challenge for us today is to become active participants in God’s power to recreate our world into the kind of world God wants. Every human person has a stake in God’s renewal of goodness and love in the world. Our second reading suggests this, when James says “My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” (James 2:1). The English word “partiality” and “favoritism” used to translate the Greek word “προσωπολημψίαις” of our second reading veils its literal translation – to pay attention to people’s looks or faces.
The human problem begins from paying attention to how others look, especially when they look differently from us as regards their skin color, intelligence, beauty, status, gender and country of origin. On the basis of these differences, our societies are fragmented into the sick and healthy, rich and poor, slaves and masters, male and female, transgender and straight, etc. Humanity is down played and differences trump everything else. Build a bridge, instead of a wall of separation: you’re today’s savior! What each one of us does and says has an effect on others. But when we realize that we are today’s saviors, that God’s healing touches are our indelible positive touches of one another; when our sole target and objective is to share a kiss of peace and restoration, then every human face will wear a laughter, joy and satisfaction. Yes, it is possible, thanks to whether or not we accept our roles as saviors in today’s world.
In fact, God continues the healing and restoration of his creation through his sacraments. At baptisms, a priest signs the lips and ears of candidates for baptism repeating the words of Jesus in today’s gospel – “be opened” – to emphasis that words resonate with the sense of hearing and speech. More importantly, that every speech and hearing must take their cues from hearing/listening to the words or speech of God. Human speech must imitate divine speech. In fact, St. James would ask: how could one use the same mouth with which one blesses God to curse human beings created in his image? The deaf and dumb man needed recreation of his speech and hearing. Something went wrong in the creation of God, and God had to fix it through Jesus Christ.
A lot has gone wrong in our world today, and most of it as a result of our collective failure to be the saviors that we should be for one another and creation itself! God’s healings continue to be accomplished for us today through the good acts of every human being. We are saviors and messiahs when we exude the goodness of the messiah in our dealings with one another, especially making the earth a better place and spreading happiness far and wide. You know what? You are today’s saviors, blame no one for the wrongs in the world, do something to change it yourself, as much as you can!
Assignment for the Week:
Could you choose to make someone wear a smile this week?
Taken from September 7, 2018